Category Archives: ADHD

A Good Enough Mother

The words are sharp, a staccato litany of frustrations ricocheting around the room. They’re mine, directed at my misbehaving teenager. Adrenaline shoots through my veins. Careful, I think, sucking in a breath, holding it. The silence echoes loudly. In my head, the diatribe continues.

Shhhh, a gentle voice says. Stop now.

My youngest stands in her pjs, ten feet away in the darkened kitchen. Backlit by the hall light, she’s small for fourteen, but contrition renders her smaller. The fire has gone out in her eyes.

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Filed under ADHD, Adolescence, Aging, Babies, Family, Growing Up, Letting Go, Motherhood, Parenting

Snow Day

snow

I fall for it every time; I get sucked in as soon as the text buzzes on my cell phone, the email lands in my inbox, and the answering machine picks up the recording (no more need to check the scrolling list of school closings at the bottom of the TV screen): “Due to winter weather conditions, school will not be in session tomorrow.”

The kids yelp and run around in circles. “SNOW DAY!!”

Mentally I do a little happy dance as I fantasize about sleeping in and snuggling up. I envision making a big pot of soup and catching an old movie. I love the snow; it’s magical when it falls thickly and blankets the ground. I love it even more when I can stay home. Thoughts of relaxing with my family for an unexpected day in make me all warm and fuzzy.

However … the imagined cozy scene is short-lived. In the morning I’m quickly reminded of how things really go. Haley, my 5th grader, is literally bouncing off the walls; she careens into the kitchen after banging into the doorframe, slides across the tile floor in her socks and wipes out, smacking her elbow on a chair on her way down. She’s wounded and howling.

“Ow, ow, ow!  Ouch!!  That huuu-UUURT!”

But just a few seconds later she resumes her litany: “I’m awake, I’m awake, I’m awake, I’m awake. The sun is awake so I’m awake.”  The refrain continues with a rhythmic accent placed on WAKE.

Coming off of winter break, the girls have already been out of school for 2 weeks. This is our 17th day of togetherness, but who’s counting?

“It snowed, it snowed, it snowed, it snowed!” Haley twirls around singing, “Later on, we’ll conspire as we dream by the fire! In the meadow we can build a snooooooowwwman.” She stops abruptly. “Hey!  We can build a snowman!”

Suddenly she’s pulling her snowsuit over her fleece jammies and stuffing her bare feet in snow boots. “I’m gonna make a snow angel!” Her enthusiasm is boundless, but so is my exhaustion as I watch her dig through the winter gear, flinging coats and hats and gloves far and wide until she finds, at the very bottom, her scarf.

“You haven’t even had breakfast yet,” I say, realizing I haven’t even had coffee yet either. No wonder. “And you haven’t had your pill,” I add.  No wonder.

“Come here and just chill.” I call her back to the kitchen.

“I need to chill. I need to chill.” She closes her eyes and repeats the words, slowly this time, as if in meditation, “I need to chill. I need to chill.”

Her eyes snap open, her quest for serenity over. “I need to take a cheeeeeell pill, a cheeeeeell pill, a cheeeeeell pill.”

“Haley, you are a diva,” Sydney says, standing quietly in her bra and boy shorts, watching as her sister cavorts around the kitchen. Sydney is the antithesis of her sibling in personality. Four years older, Syd has Down syndrome which makes her pretty chill by nature.

Smiling, I hold out my hand to Haley. “Here’s your ‘chill’ pill,” I say, her daily Ritalin in my palm.

“No, it’s not,” she says.

“Yes, it is,” I answer.

“No, it’s not,” she quips.

“Yes, it actually is your ‘chill’ pill,” I say, gesturing emphatically with my palm. Why, exactly, am I engaging?

“No, it’s NOT!”  she laughs. “It’s my chill and grill pill.” Grabbing it from my palm, she gulps it down with a swig of milk and takes off again, running to the back door.  Looking through the glass she says, “Oooh! OOOOOOhhhhhh! Look at the snow! It’s ba-ba-ba-blowing. Look at the drifts, the way the wind moves it and the, . . hey, birdies!  Hello birdies!”

She does eventually get outside, dragging Sydney along with her, Sydney who hates the cold and hates the snow and hates being bundled up even more. Wrapping a scarf around her neck, I say, “Honey, it’s really cold out there, you have to cover your skin.” Sydney yanks it off in an uncharacteristic display of defiance, pulling her own hair in the process.

“Oookay,” I concede. “Let’s just zip you all the way up then.”

They waddle outside and around the back to a sweet little sledding track that runs between our house and the neighbor’s. We’re letting them go out by themselves this year, checking occasionally out the window. Assuming that if anyone is screaming or bleeding I’ll hear about it, I feel pretty comfortable taking advantage of the free time to talk on the phone while I take the Christmas tree down.

Removing bulbs of all sizes, I place them gently in their boxes. As I unwind the lights from the branches, my earphone feeds me my sister’s voice from Oregon. I pass by the window and see the girls together, having a blast. I can vaguely hear their shouts and laughter as they slide on plastic discs down the hill. I continue my conversation, thinking all is well until suddenly, Steven comes stomping up from where he’s working downstairs–somewhere with a clear view of the back yard.

“Ha-ley!”

“What now?” I say to my husband.

“Do you need to go?” my sister asks.

“She’s got garden tools!” Steven growls, going around to the front, yelling out the door.

“Haley! Come up here and bring those with you. Right. Now!”

“What’s going on?” I ask him. Then I see. Haley is using large sharp metal tools as walking sticks—or pickaxes—to stab the snow and pull herself up the hill.  Sydney, watching from below, holds a sled and looks miserable.  She’s done.

Once inside, Sydney sheds her wet clothes in a heap by the front door and disappears. The sound of a laugh track from some Disney show or another emits through her closed door. She’s warm, she’s dry, and on a screen away from her sister. She’s happy.

Haley comes dragging in after returning everything to the garage. Dejected and sad, she says, “Sydney won’t play with me. There’s no one to play with!” For emphasis she adds, “Huummppph,” and tries to fold her arms, but her snow suit is too big.

“I’m bored!  Bored, bored, bored.”

Electronics to the rescue. The Kindle Fire Haley got from Santa this year provides amazing opportunities to download books like Robinson Crusoe and David Copperfield. She also plays Candy Crush and Mine Craft, but hey, they stimulate her mind, too, right? Sydney’s had an iPad for a few years now and uses the math and spelling apps, but left to her own devices, she’s either singing along to a music video or filming a DIY cable segment: “How To Make A Cheese Quesadilla.”

It’s true, we’re a high-tech family. We use phones, laptops, tablets and game devices daily. My sister just told me she’s limiting her son’s screen time. I know we should, too. But not today.

Sydney comes out of her bedroom in a daze and opens the fridge. She stands and stares. Then she reaches very slowly inside, her hand outstretched towards the egg carton.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“I was just, um, just feeling like, um, I just love eggs?”

“Do you want something to eat?” I ask.

“Sure!” Sydney’s eyes glow.  Haley talks to fill the time. Sydney eats.

And now the kitchen is breached.  They swarm as the food comes out . . .  again.  The dishes pile up . . . again.  I’m bombarded. Both girls talking at once, telling me what they want, what they’re doing, what they want to do, what they’ve just read, what they’re going to read, what they want me to read.

Fragments, words, bits and pieces of sentences float around me. I have lost the ability to form complete thoughts and respond patiently and coherently to my children. Tuning them out has moved beyond a survival skill to a habit.

“Uh-huh.”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Right.”

“Really?  Wow.”

“That’s awesome.”

An image comes to my mind of the aliens in the movie, Mars Attacks.  Upon hearing Slim Whitman’s piercing yodel, they drop to their knees, clutching the clear globes that protect their huge, exposed gray matter. In agony, the creatures writhe on the ground until their pulsing brains explode and green goo coats the inside of their helmets.

Snow ice cream and blanket forts and frozen bubbles. Projects and puzzles and playmates. This is what they need from me and it’s what I just can’t (or won’t?) give them 100% of the time. Part of the reason is probably my age and the fact that I’m just plain wearing out on the mothering front, but it’s also because I’ve never actually loved getting down on the floor with my kids or going to the park or making crafts or baking cookies.  And though I’ve spent a fair amount of time feeling guilty over it, I’ve come to terms with it.  I know who I am . . .  and so do they. Why I was thinking that staying home, confined to my house with my bored, squabbling children was going to be fun, I can only guess.

“Look, look!  Mom! Come here, I want you to watch. You have to come here to see.”

Haley has moved to the hallway, incessantly filling the air with words. I glance up.

She’s lying on her back with her legs lifted. “See!  I can open and close the door with my FEET!”

“Can you close your mouth with your feet?” Steven, walking through the kitchen, drops the one-liner with perfect timing.

As I’m chuckling at my husband’s quick wit, my text tone sounds.

“Honey, your phone,” he says.

I pick it up, swipe and read:

“Due to winter weather conditions, school will not be in session tomorrow.”

“NOOOoooooo!”

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Filed under ADHD, Christmas, Family, Motherhood, Parenting, Sisterhood, Special Needs

Elastigirl

Elastigirl

The interesting thing about being a mother is that everyone wants pets, but no one but me cleans the kitty litter.

– Meryl Streep

Haley is playing Jingle Bells on the piano.  It’s been less than a week since the girls schlepped their backpacks home stuffed with months of worksheets, book reports quizzes, science projects, a clay pinch-pot (penny holder? soap dish?), and a smashed cupcake from the last-day-of-school party.  There are no buses to catch this morning and at 8:00 a.m. they’re still in pj’s.  Sydney sits eating at the breakfast table, but her steady, methodical routine is disrupted by the percussive volume coming from the front room.

“Haley!”  I yell, “It’s June, for heaven’s sake.  Play something else.” Sending the piano stool spinning, she jumps off and comes sliding into the kitchen.

“I’ve got the Power!” she sings loudly, growling the word power and adding a kick and a punch for emphasis.

Dancing around and under my feet as I move from fridge to sink to coffee pot, she belts, “I’ve got the Power!  I’ve got the Power!  I’ve got the Power!  I’ve got the POWER!”

Ha-ley.  You’re annoying me.”  Sydney says quietly.  “Your .  .  .  singing.  You are, you are giving me .  .  .   a headache.”

“I’ve got the Power!  I’ve got the Power! I’ve got the Pow-ow-ow-ow-er!”  Haley scoots undeterred out of the room.  Sydney sighs, placing her palm on her forehead.

In preparation for summer fun with my girls, I cut back my hours at work.  My fantasies consisted of less routine and more freedom, less busy-ness and more togetherness, less time spent working and a whole lot more spent playing.  But that was before summer actually started.  I should know better by now.

Because, truth be told, I am a psychotic mommy; a June Cleaver meets Joan Crawford version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  The fact that only my children are capable of triggering this instantaneous shape-shifting is oddly comforting and disturbing at the same time.

My youngest, in particular, with her brilliant mind and astounding zest for life, pushes my buttons, and is (coincidentally?), like me; multi-dimensional. Living with ADHD, she is challenged by impulsivity, inattention and hyperactivity. While Sydney needs time to process, room for flexibility and a slower pace, her sister needs constant stimulation, a high level of structure and detailed feedback.

Being with Haley is like living inside a pinball machine; a jarring barrage of sounds, words and thoughts.  Continually absorbing her environment, what she takes in, she remembers forever after.  When she was 5 she said, “I have a camera in my head,” a perfect way to describe her photographic memory. Her brain fires rapidly and her mouth interpolates a running narrative.

“How do you make your own fossil?”

“Is wood a plant?”

“Why do we say 9 ‘oh’ 4 instead of 9 ‘zero’ 4?”

“Who answers the questions that scientists can’t answer.”

Incessant talking, questioning, exploring and exclaiming; Haley is compressed energy.

Sydney tries to interject between the words, but it takes her longer to get her sentences out, “Um, Mom? Mom? Um, am I going to Camp Barnabas on June 17th?”

“Yes,” I answer for the 700th time, “you are.”

Sydney is needy for attention because her sister commands it all.

“Haley!  Stop!  Mom, I didn’t get to talk.  She’s talking across me.”

Managing the lives of not one, but two, children with special needs—diametrically opposing needs—has made me the crazy mom I am today.

But, I vow this summer will be different.   This summer I don’t want to get angry and turn green, ripping my clothing to shreds.  I need a plan.  When I’m putting away freshly folded laundry and I find mildewing towels on the bathroom floor piled on top of inside-out clothes, globs of toothpaste on the counter, and a specimen floating in an un-flushed toilet bowl and I feel a familiar chemical reaction, an adrenaline surge through my body, I need to Breeeeeeeathe.  I need to Stay. In. Control.

And, how can I make it different?  That is the million-dollar question.  Being with my kids 24/7 reminds me that there is only one time they drive me nuts, and that’s when I’m with them 24/7.

One strategy is to keep moving.  We are booked day after day and frequently into the nights.  My Google calendar is colorful with appointments and events and practices and play dates.  I can’t stop or even slow, because, at that moment, sensing weakness, they will circle for the kill.  My mind repeats, ‘just keep moving, just keep moving.’

Yesterday we made it to swim practice (almost on time), picked up milk, dish soap and a birthday present at the store, had a friend over to play and went to the library.  I managed to get dressed, but I think I may have forgotten to brush my teeth.

Realistically, I can’t keep up that pace and honestly, I don’t want to.  I crave down-time and I will get it, even if it’s forced on me by exhaustion.  They need down-time, too, so scheduling relaxation at the pool seems a perfect strategy.  The kids can swim and mommy can lie in the sun; it’s a win-win!  However, another mother has messed with my plans this year; Mother Nature.

It’s been a cold, rainy spring in Mid-Missouri but despite the temperatures and weather alerts for thunderstorms, floods, and even a tornado watch, swim team practice has been held.  The little troopers sit at the edge of the pool, shivering and hugging themselves; their lips blue, teeth chattering.  Yesterday the sun broke through the clouds for 5 glorious minutes, then, a crack of thunder, and down came the rain.  Again.

My last and best strategy is to simply let go.  Surrender.  Give in, but not give up. Flexibility is the mother’s F-word.  It feels like a relief to embrace that things won’t go as I’ve planned, and in fact, that’s not what I want anyhow.  There’s an elusive truth somewhere in the back of my mind—or heart—waiting to hand me the key to the best summer yet.   Like I said, I should know better by now and maybe I actually do.

As I renegotiate my expectations, time for myself mustn’t be excluded, because what I do know is this: ‘neglect my own needs repeatedly, mercilessly and I will crash and burn.’  Prioritizing time alone is worth any effort it takes and my spoiled princesses will learn that everything is not always about them; that their indulged desires need to be balanced with others’ needs.  And for me, space from my little darlings can be the difference between Super Mom or Mommy Dearest coming to stay; the difference between me surviving the summer or relishing it.  My house might not be clean, but I will be rested and happy and appreciating my children, who won’t ever be this young again.

“Mom, can I borrow your boxing wraps to make something?” Haley asks as I type an email.  Because of her tendency to rip through drawers and closets in search of some specific item, leaving destruction in her wake, she has been told and warned and threatened to ask before she commences digging.

“Okay,” I say, not looking up from my computer, “but only one pair.”

She starts to move, and I look at her over my reading glasses, “I will get them for you.”

Sheepishly, she says, “I already got them.”

She lifts her whole leg and sets her heel heavily on the coffee table, revealing a makeshift cast, my white wraps wound and Velcro-ed over her foot, around her ankle and all the way up to her knee.

“I broke my tibula and fibula.  Can you show me how to limp?”

Eventually, the sun has to come out, right?

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Filed under ADHD, Down syndrome, Family, Letting Go, Motherhood, Parenting, Special Needs, Stress